Thought processes and conversations started under the tilted cap of Tropicana Field. Someday everyone will know the Rays play in St. Petersburg, Florida, not TAMPA, or the fictitious city of TAMPA BAY.

Results tagged ‘ MLB drug tests ’

So here we are starting part two of my little series on the drugs that can be used to get an advantage during the game of sports. As you might have noticed in the last segment, I have not used the word athlete once in connection to any of the chemicals or explanations in this short series. It is quite simple why I have not done this, because I feel you lose that title of athlete the minute you try and find a shortcut to the finish line or to get an edge through chemicals.

This is not to mean that a guy who gets his advantage through technology like Lasik seurgery to correct eye problems or a multi-levels workout tailored to his body type or conditioning requirements is chaeting or getting an unfair advantage. If the technology is availiable to everyone, and you do not use the various resources availiable, then you are a fool, not a person trying to take an unfait advantage.

With that in mind, the majority of these drugs being discussed today actually can be obtained via a doctor’s script at most pharmacies throughout the world. If these drugs were prescribed to you and you discovered the advantages, then it is a plus of medicine. But some people have also used this scientific loophole of Over-the-Counter medications to get advantages that will not show up as red flags in urine or blood tests.

These medicines were made to help suffers of many types of cancers, digestive problems and a variety of other illnesses and not for their properties to help your circulation or even muscle mass as a player. So let’s get into this second installment and see what OTC medications have been known to be abused by our stars, and what advantages they have gotten from such moves in sports.

The first one up today will be the hair raising drug know as Finasteride or better known for its medical name Propecia. As we all know, testosterone is a vital part of helping the body produce muscle mass, and this pill actually helps the body produce an enzyme that converts testosterone into dihydrotestosterone (DHT).

The pill is commonly used as a treatment for prostate cancer, the added bonus of helping to eliminate hair loss and help start new hair growth was a nice side result of the medication. But it is also a chemical that can be used to further mask the use and effects of anabolic steroids in the body because of the production of DHT. For some reason, this medication was removed from the World Doping Agency list in 2009 and is not considered a banned substance anymore, but once a cheating substance, always a cheating substance in my book.

The second chemical under the hot lamp today is also another male-generated drug to combat a growing segment of the male population. It is Sidenafil Citrate or also know by its commercial name Viagra. Of course most users can always use a variety of the drugs discussed today on a “personal” level and we might not even think twice about the medications, but because they can be used to mask and add the usage of anabolic steroids without instant positive tests.

People who use today’s medicines for the common man’s ailments for hiding place for their cheating ways via a sports-themed advantage is a bit less of a role model in my book than Barry Bonds. Viagra, as we all know is commonly used to help the ill effects of certain body functions by helping the bodys blood vessels expand and take in more oxygen and minerals. This is really helpful with playing games in high elevations as it will dilate the blood vessels for the duration of the drug and make it easier for the body to adjust to the higher altitudes.

It might be more isolated to the mountainous regions of the country, but it can give a short term advantage to teams playing games in the Mountain time zone, then resort back to their normal breathing habits after the pill is long gone from their system.

My third drug to bring up today also was introduced to help the aging population of males in this country find a bit of relief of the male pattern baldness, but also has been found to hide traces of steroids by masking the syptoms within the chemical. This is of course Minoxidil or know better as Rogaine. And this is one of the drugs that is avialiable right on our grocery shelves that can be purchased with total security and used by a large percentage of the male population.

The drug was first developed as a cure for hypertension, but its side advantages also came to light when suffers began to restore hair follices while using the product. The reson this is important because a common side effect from steroid use is hypertension or a renewed state of anxiousness in the user. The Rogaine can be used as a chemical mask to offset the hypertension as well as keep the hair follices intact on the user during the duration of using the medication.

Also, this is one of those drugs that could be in plain sight in the Clubhouse in your locker and most people will not give it a second look. but if you are a reporter who might be a little knowledgable about steroids or even the masking agents used, then it would send up a red flag to you unless it is doctor prescribed for the user. As I said before, just becuase a drug was developed to help the common man, it was not developed for a cheater to use as a “beard” to come down or take themselves off steroids.

Now hitting number four on our countdown of medications that could be found on any bathroom countertop in America, but can be a masking agent for steroids is…Metformin Hydrochloride, which is also better known as Glumetza on the pharmacy shelf. This medication has been known to be a great additive to get extra carbs into your bodies system without detection.

This pills is a nice addtive to get those extra pounds on and to also mask the usuage of anabolic steroids by masking or diluting their properties because of the high carbo loading by your body. This medication actually helps people with type 2 diabetes get the glucose into their systems faster and helps improve their blood sugar control. The pill can also lead to kidney problems if abused by people who do not need regulation of their blood sugar, and could result in other parts of your body also suffering extreme damage if used in correctly.

Now it onto a chemical that was initially developed to help combat weight loss without throwing your body into a crash diet scenario. The Drug being discussed here is Liothronine or also known as Cytomel. The medication is a synthetic form of the throid horomone needed by the human body, which controls our normal metablosim functions. But it also has a secondary basis to help a user.

This medication can be used by a sly trainer or user to also get fast results via a six-week cycle to help a user get body fat loss quicker while regaining muscle mass so they can effectively hide any transformation by not gaining excess or bulky weight distinguished by an adverse gain in size and weight. This drug has also been known to be mixed with HGH as a cocktail to help induce massice changes within a small period of time. This medication can also be taken before a game to bring about a instant rush of energy without the side effects of a positive drug test.

And last, but not least today will be the medication Dutasteride or known better as Avodart. This is a true masking agent because it is effective in hiding some of the side effects of using anabolic steroids like the unsightly bacne. This medication can be taken in a cocktail also with Propecia listed above because of the production of DHT is the main contributor to the essence of bacne.

The Avodart acts as a masking agent to dilute the DHT enzyme and creates a buffer to eliminate this tell-tale sign of steroid usage or coming off a steroid cycle. But this is also two-fold as the medication also has a nice side effect of making certain body parts, well shrink in transition to its usage. And becuase of that, it can give a secondary sight recognition to the possible steroid usageand a reputation with the ladies.

All six of the medications listed above can be prescribed or bought over-thecounter in a multitude of locations in this country or online with total invisibility. But the true fact that using these medications doesn’t instantly click to most people as drug masking agents only helps in the coverup of any wrongdoings by the user. It old adage “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover” is sure true in refernce to this medications.

But there are also other medicines that are used by drug/steroid users to mask intent like Methylphenidate(Ritalin) which gives a user more focus and put them “in-the-zone” quicker. It was amzing the when MLB banned stimulants in 2006, the MLB’s exemption paperwork for this medication as a theraputical-usage skyrocketed.

Another medication that is not widely used, but can be seen as another masking agent is Fentanyl, which is mostly a painkiller that is used after a marathon lifting session to mask the ill effects of pain and the body’s nature combat to pain. The have been a high number of deaths from this medication, but it is not a usual product used by steroid users because of the adverse effects.

Drug usage or the application od OTC medications to mask and also attribute to steroid usage have been around for a long time. Most of the medications were devised for the good of mankind, and not to translate as an agent to hide the effects or the usage of unfair chemicals by some users. Tomorrow I am going to end the series with a product that I in fact sold for the last ten years as a saleman for a large beverage company.

I am finding its usage climbing into extreme numbers with members of many sports, and I think it needs to be regulated within the confines of the clubhouse. I do feel a bit of guilt now knowing some of the ill effects of this item, but will dig deeper into my concerns and also some remedies tomorrow. But I do want to stress that even if your favorite athlete has some of the above six drugs in his medicine cabinet doesn’t automatically thrown him into a “steroid” suspection to me. Some people do need these medications for personal use, but it is sad that others abuse the system by using them to put even a hint of suspicion on people who use the products correctly and for the right reasons.

With all the wild and rambling chatter both for and against the use of any form of Performance Enhancing Drugs making their side effects and silent advantages known throughout the alleys and byways of the Internet, I came to the conclusion that most people might be like me and only have a very limited exposure or set of ideas as to the types and uses for these PEDs by their users.

And with that, I have decided to do a three part series over the next several days to try and throw a little more light onto the total subject and to expose a little more knowledge and insight into the types of PEDs currently “Banned by most sports”, ” Still legal to use in competition” or even the types still “under banishment in “official competitions”.

There is a plethora of information just at our little fingertips among the many files and annuals of the Internet for us to begin to grasp a better understanding of what these “magical pills” can do to even heighten personal workouts and even create an edge without setting off red flags and alarm signals from here to China and back. And all of this hit me about a few minutes after the conclusion of the Bob Costas interview with former slugger Mark McGwire on the MLB Network channel.

So as you can tell, this is going to be a series of blog posts that have taken me a few days to check and double check with various websites and even drug company informational material furnished online to try and get some added intelligence out here for the average fan. So I am going to start this first installment with the drugs that are currently totally banned by most sports organization throughout the world, and especially Major League Baseball.

The first one I am going to discuss is the drug HumanChoronic Gonadotropin (HCG). This substance is generally used by an athlete when he is about to finish a steroid-type cycle of another manmade chemical substance. So this drug can sometimes be also “piggy-backed” while coming down off another substance to try and mask any chemical fingerprints or traces of the user taking unnatural means to get results during participation in a sport.

Sometimes when a user abuses his body a bit in a drug cycle by pumping himself full of a synthetic product, his body can actually start to cut-back or even eliminate its natural reaction to produce testostrone. This is mostly a female fertility used drug that can make the body restart the process of testotrone production. Unfortunately for Los Angeles Dodger Manny Ramirez, this was the nice little surprise additive to his body that earned him a 50-game vacation from the game in 2009.

High levels of HCG are usually the chemical that set off most of the home pregnancy testing kits we currently purchase in the stores. Most users do take HCG in connection with their usual Anabolic Androgenic Steroid (AAS) cycles. This drug can be used for weight loss, but generally it is considered a bit unconventional for use to jump start a ultra low calorie weight loss program due to its unsafe nature.

The second drug of choice by some users is called Furosemide or by one of it’s better known drug company names, Lasix, which is short for “last six hours”. Seriously, this is a diuretic usually used for a certain type of performer, but they run on four legs instead of two like we do. The drug was actually developed to stop nosebleeds in throughbred horses. The World Doping Agency has officially banned this substance because it can sometimes mask the chemical evidence of other drugs in a user’s system.

The drug does have human applications, but it is mostly for heart failure, cirrhosis,renal impairment and some forms of hypertension. But it is a drug that can cuase side effects like dehydration, electrolyte imbalance becuase it robs the body of potassium,calcium, sodium and magnesium and these side effects are severly amplified in humans using them. Some people might remember that several female weightlifters from Mayanmar(China) and Uzbekistan failed drugs tests during the Asian Games and were stripped of their medals.

The third drug that could produce an instant positive test is Clenbuterol, or sometimes just known as Bute. This drug might not set off the bells and whistles for most people unless they use a high stress swimming program during the cold winter months to try and speed up some muscle mass or even get some of that extra poundage off fast and furious. It can also be used to give a lifter an edge of extra oxygen for an extended workout by opening constricted airways.

But some users can get medical clearance for this item due to their high asthma in the form of Clenbuterol hydrochloride in a bronchodialator. This drug has also been making the rounds on Internet sites as a quick weight loss wonder drug aka dietary supplement and some uneducated personal trainers have been known to include it in a users intake to produce a quick lean and “cut” look to muscles. Most trainers introduce it not as an illegal drug, but as a weight loss advantage during the off season.

The fourth chemical I am going to introduce you to is Tri-Test 300 which has been known to known to have lasting steroid effects depending on your dosage and your cycle length. It is another form of synthetic testostrone that can be used as a quick fix after staying inactive an extra amount of time in the off season. This is also a drug that might go undetected in a sport that has a weak drug testing system for this type of steroid.

It is very fast-acting substance that can bring about remarkable physical changes in as little as three weeks usage. It has a habit of almost time-releasing itself to expolde in your system, then another segment blasts off about five days later, then the long lasting effects kick in a bit later to give you an extra groove to work hard in the least amount of time. Major League Baseball’s drug testing system is not outfitted at this time to find low does of thi
s chemical in their player’s system.

The fifth nice little fast acting chemical I am going to introduce to you is Oxandrolone/Oxandrin(Anavar) which is considered by many to be the beginner’s level to introduction to a chemical that can sometimes go undetected by some tests. The first appearance of this drug was mostly as an anti-aging pill given out by doctors because of its low list of side effects.

But this is also a nice little advantage that baseball players could use to develop muscle mass without triggering weight loss. It has been a great interactive drug to combat osteoporosis in women without a huge dose of estrogen being delivered quickly to the body. But it is an anabolic steroid that can be detected in the system if the user did abuse the medication, or if the user goes off a cycle too close to his testing date. This could produce a ticking timebomb positive test result.

The sixth chemical that a user can use actually might produce a pair of easy steroid detection bodily disformation if you look closely for them. It is the drug Letrozole/ Femara. This drug can actually make it easier for the journalist and the fellow players on your team to automatically throw assumption out the window when you come into the clubhouse with a new set of enlarged breats, which are a usual indicator of this chemical in your system.

Femara was first developed as a estrogen-inhibiting drug for post-menopausal women for use as an anti-cancer inhibitor. It has been used as a treatment option after breast cancer surgery. The drug is beneficial to users who want to get rid of extensive water retention and can be used to mask the formation of gynecomastia, which is a side effect of anabolic steroids.

Lucky number seven on my list is an item each of us males need to keep our masculinity intact, but sometimes with age and other complications, the body can not keep up the high demand. Of course I am talking about Testosterone. In the sporting areans, this can be obtained by a bevy of products both injectible and topical. So let’s start with the topical ones since that is one of the items Mr. McGwire used to have out in the open in his locker in St. Louis.

The form of topical Big Mac had on his self of course was Androgel. But there is another item called Testim that also helps with the production of testostrone, but can be flushed from the body within a period of a few days. Some people say that this drug can be used to taper off a tad without completely eliminating the steroid cycle and get your body tuned up for a potential drug test. This could be a quick fix for a player trying to mask coming down from a cycle right before training camp opens after a long off season.

But then we also have the injectable type of testostrone which has probably been a gym favorite for as long as we all have lived. It is a fast acting muscle growth chemical that has greatly reduce a workout’s recovery time. This is one of the main drugs that have been thought to have been used in endurance races like the Tour de France. In the 1940’s it was being touted as an anti-aging drug, but most people know the name from the U.S. Congress including it as a “controlled substance” during the Anabolic Steroid Control Act in 1990.

And the last one I am going to talk about today is the granddaddy of them all. The one that people seem to know the most about, and fear the least at times. I am talking about Human Growth Horomone (HGH), which can also go by the name Somatropin. This has been the basis of steroid cocktails for years, and throws an instant fix when combined with another chemical to induce your muscle building by smacking your insulin growth facotr in the behind and sets it off at high speed.

This has seemed to be the chemical of choice in recent years because before recently, it has been pretty much invisible to most drug testing systems. But because of the high profile anti-aging properties and its claim to be a great weight management stimulant for the body. Traditional urine tests have been known to complete be fooled by the drug,but a blood test will set off instant red flags and alarms. One huge future side effect of this chemical could be the faster development of diabetes in some subjects.

So here we go with the first level of highly regarded and outlawed possible cheating chemicals list. I am not forgetting some of the newly developed ways by smugglers to dupe the system by soaking ricepaper in anabolic steroids then cutting them into small blotter pieces almost like some drug dealers did in the 1960’s with LSD.

These Paperbol,Papervar,PaperDrol items being on paper doesn’t mask a dog or even a wet surface from accidently activating the chemicals, but it also doesn’t make them any more legal either.

Tomorrow I will bring out a short list of about six items that are not on any drug testing systems “banned list, but can promote some of the same results as anabolic steroids, but are over-the-counter medication like Viagra. Common medication that each of us could get at a doctors office can also increase some performance levels in sports dues to the extended properties of these medications. So until tomorrow, please look before you pop that pill in your mouth or take that liquid medication…….It could cost you a positive drug result!

The following are trademarks or service marks of Major League Baseball entities and may be used only with permission of Major League Baseball Properties, Inc. or the relevant Major League Baseball entity: Major League, Major League Baseball, MLB, the silhouetted batter logo, World Series, National League, American League, Division Series, League Championship Series, All-Star Game, and the names, nicknames, logos, uniform designs, color combinations, and slogans designating the Major League Baseball clubs and entities, and their respective mascots, events and exhibitions.